P8P67 Deluxe Random Restarts.

**I already posted this in the Asus forums hoping an Asus rep would see it there, but knowing how technically able my fellow OCN'ers are, I figure it wouldn't hurt to post this here as well.**

Hi all,

I've been pulling my hair out over the last few days trying to figure out what is causing my computer to randomly reboot without any other warning signs such as a BSOD or even a freeze/noticeable lag to the system. I've ran every conceivable type of benchmark/test that I can think of to confirm system stability, but for some reason - it reboots once/twice a day, usually during gaming. This has given me a long list of kernel-exception errors in my event viewer (improper shutdown), but nothing else.

What I have tried:

- Uninstalled the Intel rapid store software since I'm not running a RAID, and I've heard that this can be the cause for reboots/freezing.

-Changed RAM timings/voltages. I have also run a slough of memtest86+/winmemtest/memtest trials to see if my memory is the culprit. 0 errors and from my experience memory tends to give bluescreens/ntfs errors more than anything. My Vccio is set to 1.2v as it is said to improve stability with memory that requires 1.65v in XMP. I've tried 1333Mhz at 9-9-9-24-1T @1.5v and there wasn't a difference. (with auto vccio)

- Ran OCCT PSU test. While I don't know of a true way to test a PSU outside from putting a multimeter in series with a 12v line and measuring current on load, I did notice that through AI Suite, my 12v line did drop down to 11.808v at full load. How much of this can be taken without a grain of salt is hard to tell as this is all up to the interpretation of software sensors. I have used my meter to check voltages before, and my PSU does seem to keep a constant, healthy 12v/5v/3v reading.

- I have disabled all sleep/hibernate/C3/C6 power saving options. (Set to high performance in windows as well.) I do have EPU enabled at the moment, but from afaik that would only cause a double boot from a cold boot, if anything. C3 and C6 *used* to be required to use turbo, but it appears that is no longer the case, and I was able to see better oc stability when turning them off.

- Prime95 1hr blend stable.

- Linpack 1hr stable. (with new avx instruction set)

- IBT stable.

- I have installed all the current drivers from the main deluxe page and am currently running the 1505 BIOS. I had this issue with 1503, so I hoped using the beta would fix this.

- I have gone through my device manager and cleaned up all uninstalled device/drivers. I know sometimes windows likes to keep those in the registry and make a mess. Not the case here.

- I've run malwarebytes and an AV scan courtesy of Avast!. No issues found.

- My temperatures are 35c idle and don't tend to exceed 75c (using the new avx stuff really heats up sandy bridge!) during benchmark testing.

- This does tend to happen while playing World of Warcraft. I've run repair and looked through logs to see if anything weird is happening there. Nothing out of the ordinary yet. I've read through google that there is a known issue with onboard sound vs my Sound Blaster X-Fi card, but I do have onboard disabled in the BIOS.

- I've adjusted my VRM frequency from 350 to 400. I haven't tried auto, but from what I understand that will only be an issue with stability at 100% load on an overclock. I do have spread spectrum set to OFF and have tried the recommended settings posted here.

- I have my voltage set to manual, and have tried both offset and auto voltages. (C1E with EIST/Turbo enabled.) I didn't see a difference aside from auto putting too much voltage through the CPU for the same clocks versus manually testing for stable voltages.

- Gone through windows update to ensure I have my OS up to date. (Windows 7 ultimate x64 with sp1.)


That's pretty much everything off the top of my head. I'm really baffled as to what could be causing this as it seems to me that something is causing my PSU to trip and force a restart. I recently changed to Asus after having issues with MSI and their lack of compatibility with RAM as well as terrible VRM stability. (They still have serious issues regarding pll voltages.) I'm pretty much at my wit's end and am hoping it's something simple I've overlooked before I end up RMA'ing this gorgeous motherboard. That, and the thought of ripping out my watercooling loop AGAIN doesn't sound too appealing. ><


tl;dr: My computer reboots randomly once to twice a day and after trying just about everything under the sun, I can't figure out what's causing it. RMA my motherboard while I can use newegg's 30 day no-hassle program, or is there something else causing this? Also, is there a better way to test a PSU (I've heard reports of CoolerMaster PSU's going south rather quickly, and would like to verify this isn't the case. As it's sporadic reboots without bsod's, I somewhat doubt it's the PSU, so if I could test it further, that'd be great!)

Thanks for reading my wall-of-text, and I look forward to any possible suggestions, ideas!

Thanks for the link, but this isn't happening after an idle period. Good information nonetheless!

Hmmm. This I'm going to have to give a shot. I really wish these restarts weren't so random - makes troubleshooting far more difficult.

Unfortunately I was still getting a restart even with your suggestion. Strange thing is, I just reinstalled all of my Intel drivers (ethernet, chipset) after reading about a suggestion on the microsoft forums, and haven't had a restart in the last 24hrs. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it could be such a simple solution for such a strange predicament. I had planned on posting once I had a few more days of stability under my belt, but we'll see!

Thanks for following up!

Update: (For those that might have similar issues) Completely uninstalling and reinstalling my Intel drivers (chipset/ethernet) seems to have fixed my issue. I also noticed that my setting for automatic restarts had been set back to on (I always disable this first on new builds), and I have made sure this has been set back to off. While the restart option could be the culprit, it only reboots your computer in the event of a critical error (BSOD). As I have not had any errors/bsod in the last 4 days, I'm going to go with the Intel drivers somehow clashing with windows causing a fault.

Four days restart-free, so I'm calling this problem licked.

Edit: These reboots started happening again even after everything above. I wanted to update this thread with the correct solution for my issue. It turns out I had Load Line Calibration set to extreme and it would keep that setting even after clearing CMOS. I did an RMA on my first Deluxe, and copied all the settings I had originally set in my BIOS. I noticed that with the extreme setting, my vdroop would cause the board to overcompensate, causing an increase in voltage above that set in the BIOS. This seems to cause an over-current fault with the protection circuitry, causing the PSU (I replaced that too, thinking it *might* have been the issue after having a reboot with a new board.) to trip and restart the PC. The new board did not have this issue of retaining settings after a CMOS clear, so I was able to do a "clean" test of my settings.

I found a sure-fire way to cause these random restarts to occur by installing the updated Intel Burn Test with AVX instructions and running it at the Very-High setting. This would cause the PC to reboot usually within 1-3 loops. After changing LLC to Very High, the voltage remained at a far more reasonable .015vdc below the set voltage. I did try "High" first, but vdroop took me down .050-.055vdc below my desired voltage resulting in a x124 bsod. (Lack of vcore.) On Extreme, the voltage would spike above the set voltage by .018-.025vdc, causing the circuit to trip.

I definitely learned something new about the P67 platform these last few weeks, and hopefully this will help anyone else out there pulling out their hair trying to figure out why their computer is randomly rebooting with this motherboard. It looks like Outcasst had it all along!
Edited by HAF_wit - 6/1/11 at 2:32am

Asus tech support didn't even know that LLC could do this. Now if I had only realized that my settings weren't saving to the lower LLC setting, I could have saved myself a couple hundred dollars and a month+ of testing.